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Went to Cadwell Park on Sunday 22nd to watch a family friend compete in the No Limits bike racing event, and the day didn't go as planned, in more ways than one!
My friend competes in the Newcomer 1000 series. The event takes place over 2 days of racing, with 1 race on the Saturday, and 3 races on the Sunday (there's an endurance race on the Saturday hence the un-even split). I couldn't go both days (6 hour round trip) so elected to go up on the Sunday.
In the Saturday race my friend fell off the bike on the 2nd lap (having been leading for a while on lap 1, after starting in 6th on the grid). Fortunately only his ego was bruised, although the bike needed some work.
I got to Cadwell on the Sunday just before his first race was due to start. I was at the "mountain" corner (along with loads of other togs). He started dead last after Saturday's disaster, but was up to 10th by about the 4th lap, then disaster struck again. Going for 9th he went wide at Mansfield and lost the bike (the guy in 9th went down as well but don't think they touched). He went down heavy but still got to his feet OK, but then as he went to go pick up his bike it burst into flames! Here's the bike back at the paddock after the marshall's recovered it (and this is after a bit of clean up!):-
On arriving home later that day he went to hospital and it seems he's fractured his wrist, so that's the season over already.
I can't compare my day to his of course, but things didn't go swimmingly for me either. I have a Nikon D3300 (absolutely not the right camera for motorsports but all I could afford at the time) and 2 lenses, a Sigma 150-600mm (a xmas present to myself) which I bought specifically for circuit photography and have already used to good effect at Snetterton, my "local" circuit, and a 18-200mm zoom that I bought to replace the kit lens and use as my everyday walk-around lens (a job it does very well).
Cadwell however is not Snetterton, you can get very close to the track (great for spectators), there's load of access (although not to the spot where the iconic "over the mountain" shots can be taken), and the Sigma was just too big for the job (bearing in mind 150mm on a crop-sensor camera = effective 225mm), so like an idiot I thought I could use the 18-200mm for everything, including the bikes on track. I took about 1600 pictures with it, but when I got home and loaded them up into Lightroom to say I was disappointed is an understatement. Most were horrible. It seems at 200mm (and wide open) the lens is just bad! But even the closer shots (some at less than 50mm) are not a lot better, seems this lens is only good for static subjects! I was in shutter priority mode all day because I wanted to experiment with shutter speeds and I've been caught out with manual mode and not adjusting the aperture to prevent over-exposure (it was a very bright sunny day for the most part). If only I'd gone manual and stopped it down when I could've done, or found a spot where I could've used the Sigma (I'm sure there are some).
Oh well, it was a learning experience (I learned serious togs don't buy f2.8 70-200 pro-sports-zooms for nothing!). I've uploaded the few decent shots I took to Flickr, albeit most of them have been PP'ed to within an inch of their life, but I'm too embarrassed to post them here for proper critique because they don't come close to the kind of quality anyone else around here is capable of.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmigEeny
My friend competes in the Newcomer 1000 series. The event takes place over 2 days of racing, with 1 race on the Saturday, and 3 races on the Sunday (there's an endurance race on the Saturday hence the un-even split). I couldn't go both days (6 hour round trip) so elected to go up on the Sunday.
In the Saturday race my friend fell off the bike on the 2nd lap (having been leading for a while on lap 1, after starting in 6th on the grid). Fortunately only his ego was bruised, although the bike needed some work.
I got to Cadwell on the Sunday just before his first race was due to start. I was at the "mountain" corner (along with loads of other togs). He started dead last after Saturday's disaster, but was up to 10th by about the 4th lap, then disaster struck again. Going for 9th he went wide at Mansfield and lost the bike (the guy in 9th went down as well but don't think they touched). He went down heavy but still got to his feet OK, but then as he went to go pick up his bike it burst into flames! Here's the bike back at the paddock after the marshall's recovered it (and this is after a bit of clean up!):-
On arriving home later that day he went to hospital and it seems he's fractured his wrist, so that's the season over already.
I can't compare my day to his of course, but things didn't go swimmingly for me either. I have a Nikon D3300 (absolutely not the right camera for motorsports but all I could afford at the time) and 2 lenses, a Sigma 150-600mm (a xmas present to myself) which I bought specifically for circuit photography and have already used to good effect at Snetterton, my "local" circuit, and a 18-200mm zoom that I bought to replace the kit lens and use as my everyday walk-around lens (a job it does very well).
Cadwell however is not Snetterton, you can get very close to the track (great for spectators), there's load of access (although not to the spot where the iconic "over the mountain" shots can be taken), and the Sigma was just too big for the job (bearing in mind 150mm on a crop-sensor camera = effective 225mm), so like an idiot I thought I could use the 18-200mm for everything, including the bikes on track. I took about 1600 pictures with it, but when I got home and loaded them up into Lightroom to say I was disappointed is an understatement. Most were horrible. It seems at 200mm (and wide open) the lens is just bad! But even the closer shots (some at less than 50mm) are not a lot better, seems this lens is only good for static subjects! I was in shutter priority mode all day because I wanted to experiment with shutter speeds and I've been caught out with manual mode and not adjusting the aperture to prevent over-exposure (it was a very bright sunny day for the most part). If only I'd gone manual and stopped it down when I could've done, or found a spot where I could've used the Sigma (I'm sure there are some).
Oh well, it was a learning experience (I learned serious togs don't buy f2.8 70-200 pro-sports-zooms for nothing!). I've uploaded the few decent shots I took to Flickr, albeit most of them have been PP'ed to within an inch of their life, but I'm too embarrassed to post them here for proper critique because they don't come close to the kind of quality anyone else around here is capable of.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmigEeny
My humble opinion of course.